I pulled to the side of the road near the J. Robert Gordon Sandhills Field Trial Ground, rolled down the windows, and enjoyed the sweet, warm breeze blowing through my truck. The calendar said it was deep into winter and yet I had the windows down. Fancy that. I wasn’t lost; heck, I’ve never been lost in my life. Misguided, yes, misdirected, absolutely, but lost? Never. Wherever I am I am, and on this sunny, bluebird day I looked out at some 60,000 acres of longleaf pines, love grass, and bobwhite quail courses. Many famous dogs ran here, and up-and-coming pups will run here—it’s ingrained in the fabric of the Sandhills. Birds, bird dogs, and bird hunters—it’s been this way for a long, long time.

I wasn’t lost, I’d just overshot my destination—John Webb Road in Ellerbe, North Carolina, the location of The Webb Farm. Ellerbe is near Rockingham, due east of the Pee Dee River and west of Pinehurst. It’s an area that Sir Walter Raleigh liked because it helped him popularize tobacco. Here, between the Piedmont and the Atlantic coast, there is a mixture of just enough red clay and sand to make everything grow, from peaches to millet. At The Webb Farm, folks’ attention is squarely on the Sandhills trinity of land, quail, and bird dogs.

We are leaving Montana, continuing the autumn hunter’s road trip to Alberta, Canada. In the morning, preparing to embark, we realize the lug wrench for the Burb (my Chevy Suburban) won’t work on the fancy rims the truck came with, so we begin moving two mountains of gear from the Burb to my friend Aaron Tewell’s truck. (Tewelly and I are headed to Alberta to hunt.) While moving the gear, the painful realization hits that my passport is in my desk in Bozeman, 200 miles away. Panic and a major scramble ensue.

After numerous Google searches, calls, and texts, we arrange an epic two-step-tango rendezvous at the Sportsman Bar in Harlowton, Montana, 140 miles away. Getting me the passport requires my better half “Saint Sue” to drive to Livingston and pass off the passport to a friend of Aaron’s wife, named Jenny. Jenny swaps vehicles with Aaron’s wife Meriweather, fills up, and deadheads to Harlowton to meet me at the Sportsman Bar. Do I ever rejoice when Jenny walks into and brightens the dimly lit bar with an ear-to-ear smile, waving my passport! After brief hugs, we go our separate ways: Jenny back to Livingston and me driving like crazy to our camp on the Missouri River.

Upon arriving at camp we do some last-minute packing, close up the travel trailer (the Road Abode), and kennel Aaron’s young Chessie Carl and tricolor setter Sassy. My setter Meg curls up on top of the duffels in the backseat and we’re on the road.

My pup was 16 weeks old, legs too long and feet too big for the rest of her. Sometimes she missed the front step and went out flat on her chin. She’d been a part of the family for six weeks and our upland bird season was about to close. Maybe I was pushing too hard, but I didn’t want the season to end without taking her on a hunt.

We called her Liesl, which on a good day sounds like lethal and on other days rhymes with weasel. She’s a pudelpointer, bred for intelligence, love of water, retrieving instinct, and willingness to please. Her lineage can be traced back 135 years to 7 German hunting pudels and 20 English pointers.

Six years ago, my friend Steve Waller showed me how skilled the breed was at finding deer and elk antlers. Later, we hunted pheasants. Waller introduced me to breeder Rod Rist, and this year we got our first pudelpointer from Rist. Prey drive, both Rist and Waller told me, is the most important quality at this stage.

When the dog was 11 weeks, I introduced her to a chukar wing tied to a fishing line. She gave chase and when she learned she couldn’t catch it, she began to point, her right leg cocked and tail erect.

When she was 12 weeks, I hid a pheasant wing. When she found it, she tried to run away with it. I tugged on the rope leash and brought her back to praise her. Soon, I began to carry a BB gun along on 10-minute training “hunts.”

At 14 weeks, she pointed the pheasant wing and stood still for a record 12 seconds, every muscle atremble. At 15 weeks, she ran off the leash into a stand of juniper trees. She sniffed packrat nests and field mouse holes. She ran ahead and then halted to check on me. She quartered into the wind and stopped when she’d picked up the scent of something far off. I went around a fallen juniper and found her pointing tweety birds in the branches. Prey drive—she’s got it.

The question with any pup is when to take it on the first hunt. I wondered if I was doing the right thing, but off we went.